"Eat Your Carrots"
The above title is but one of the one liners employed by Shoot 'Em Up, a rag tag, . Shoot 'Em Up seems to run its dialogue solely on one-liners and throwaways. Most likely Shoot 'Em Up was intended to take action movie cliches and turn them on their head. Writer/director Michael Davis tries his darndest to be witty and clever. If nothing else, Shoot 'Em Up serves to educate it's audience on the mighty potential of the everyday carrot. Carrots are the favored standby of the "hero" Smith (no first name) played by Clive Owen. Smith utilizes carrots to kill, ingest, and as a gun trigger.
If nothing else, Shoot 'Em Up is indeed clever with its use of vegetables. Sadly, that is all that this wild and silly film offers. Paul Giamati, a fine actor, is reduced to telling a dead woman she has "nice knockers", as the villian only known as Hertz. When you first hear his name, you almost excpect a literal pun like, Hurts or Hurtz, since he is the leader of what seems to be an endless supply of cannon fodder. The allegedly true spelling of the villian's name had to be found elsewhere.
Over the Top in Every Way
Shoot 'Em Up does everything to the extreme: violence, language, sex, and eating carrots all have to be stylistic. This makes the entire proceeding very silly. It cannot be said for certain whether this movie was intended to be comical but as you watch it you cannot help but chuckle at how ludricous it all is.
The plot, as it were, finds Smith the unwitting guardian of a newborn baby after the mother is killed by Hertz. What follows is a cataclysm of gunplay, sex with a prostitute played by the lovely Monica Bellucci and a ridiculous plot about a sick anti-gun Senator who tried to clone a cure and the gun company that wants him to die. It is here that Shoot 'Em Up reveals its hand.
Shoot 'Em Up is a not so subtle take on gun rights that the National Rifle Association would not exactly endorse. Smith claims to hate guns, but when he has no carrot to kill with, he relies on them to dispatch Hertz's endless minions. The irony of the film has to be an intention. Otherwise, Shoot 'Em Up is nothing more than a farce. If you want to turn off your brain for eighty six minutes then go ahead and rent Shoot 'Em Up. If you cannot stand to be without though for that length of time, then you should probably avoid this film at all costs. However, just remember to eat your vegetables. Especially carrots....
